Do you plan your day in advance?

02-12-2011, 12:21 PM

David Allen and his staff recommend to make a choice of what to do in the moment. No planning of the day in advance. I think it is also important to plan the day before it starts. You need to choose the most important projects before other people start choosing that for you. Should you have discrete time only then you should check your action lists.

Yes, I use Tracks to keep my todos and projects. It offers a starred view where you have the tasks by context. It is very likely to know which contexts you'll be during the next day and which actions you could do or not.

For example, if the bank is closed, even if a task is in the "bank" context, it is not doable the next day. Or if I don't feel like shopping the next day, I won't include any items in the "shopping" context.

I use a mindmap and I print these likely to be done next day tasks on paper - i.e. when I make errands, it is harder for me to open the phone, connect to my Tracks installation and see the tasks. I prefer to get the paper out and just do the tasks.

Having a daily plan helps me reduce the noise produced by actions which are not doable or which I wouldn't really feel I want to do that day.

Comment

TesTeq, imagine your day. In the morning you jump in the car. Open your list and apply 4-criteria model for choosing what to do. By the first criteria you limit your choice to making calls. You choose the most important one of that: make a customer meeting. So you make a call and go to your customer place, work there, then back home. And the same repeats for three days in a row. Through the day you didn't find yourself in the @Computer context. Imagine how would you feel when you open your list on the forth day when you got at your office at last to find out that it kept more important stuff to do for you - discuss something important with your boss. And you spent three days in a row on something less important. Ups. Doesn't it wise to plan your day in advance?

Comment

TesTeq, imagine your day. In the morning you jump in the car. Open your list and apply 4-criteria model for choosing what to do. By the first criteria you limit your choice to making calls. You choose the most important one of that: make a customer meeting. So you make a call and go to your customer place, work there, then back home. And the same repeats for three days in a row. Through the day you didn't find yourself in the @Computer context. Imagine how would you feel when you open your list on the forth day when you got at your office at last to find out that it kept more important stuff to do for you - discuss something important with your boss. And you spent three days in a row on something less important. Ups. Doesn't it wise to plan your day in advance?

Just because you make a call from your car first thing in the morning doesn't mean your call has to set up an immediate appointment. In fact, before you make the call, you need to know your time frame for when the appointment should be. Intuition and time spent every day defining your work are key. If you want to call defining your work planning your day, go for it. I think "defining my work" is a better description. I don't necessarily do it first thing in the morning, and it's not limited to just today.

Comment

If I do plan my day in advance then it would be done in the nightly review, the night before...however, I've found this to mess up my workflow for the following day.

See, I used to actually attempt to plan out my next day; planning what project or action i'd like to tackle after lunch, before the drive to work, during the lunch break and whatever else. This does work, but up to a certain degree.

..The only planning i'll do is, I'll take a look at all my available projects and actions...and flag 3 items. These 3 items that i'll flag will automatically rise to the top of their available context, so as to more easily identify them during the middle of a busy day.....but most important, I've set an internal agreement with myself that if I tackle the 3 flagged items for the day and nothing else, i'll still consider it a productive and accomplished day.....rather than simply working out of context view.

It certainly helps in grasping a bit more productive and creative control over my day(s).

Comment

TesTeq, imagine your day. In the morning you jump in the car. Open your list and apply 4-criteria model for choosing what to do. By the first criteria you limit your choice to making calls. You choose the most important one of that: make a customer meeting. So you make a call and go to your customer place, work there, then back home. And the same repeats for three days in a row. Through the day you didn't find yourself in the @Computer context. Imagine how would you feel when you open your list on the forth day when you got at your office at last to find out that it kept more important stuff to do for you - discuss something important with your boss. And you spent three days in a row on something less important. Ups. Doesn't it wise to plan your day in advance?

It is not my day. I do a short review of my calendar and lists the night before - to make sure that I do not overlook something important. You can call it "planning a day in advance" if you wish.

Comment

I don't plan my day in advance, but I do review my list(s) either at the start of the day or the night before and pick out a few items that I would like to or must be completed that day. Toodledo allows you to 'star' items and this is what Iīll do as I scan my list(s).
Another thing I like to do with Toodledo is to place end dates of projects/actions. I donīt put a start date and I donīt put it on my calendar and the date isnīt necessarily a hard date - I guess one could say this takes the place of a tickler file for me since I donīt use/have one of those. The purpose the date serves is to bring it up on my radar screen a few days in advance so I know itīs approaching - the date can then be re-negotiated, moved as needed and/or ultimately placed on the calendar for a 'hard' completion date.

The lists can then be sorted by 'star', due date, context, priority etc to keep the most current/pressing/urgent/timely stuff near the top.

My job for the day is to knock out all the stars - once those "must complete" items are out of the way Iīm free to choose among the rest of my next actions to fill up the rest of the day - and then knock out as many other next actions as I can.

Comment

David does recommend daily planning, if it helps. In one of the audio seminars on this website he talks about highlighting the next actions in the morning that would have the highest impact through the day.

I dont think theres anything wrong with scanning through your lists and deciding which handful will make the biggest impact. The alternative is scanning through your lists ahead of every NA you take, which seems like more effort.

Comment

Just because you make a call from your car first thing in the morning doesn't mean your call has to set up an immediate appointment. In fact, before you make the call, you need to know your time frame for when the appointment should be. Intuition and time spent every day defining your work are key. If you want to call defining your work planning your day, go for it. I think "defining my work" is a better description. I don't necessarily do it first thing in the morning, and it's not limited to just today.

Mcogilvie, you're right that when I make a call first thing in the morning it doesn't mean this call would setup an immediate appointment. It could be an appointment for tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or even later. When I make ten calls in a row it would mean that I scheduled approx 2x10=20 hours of my time. My example was to show that while in a car I was limited to @Calls context and was working out of it whereas more important action was in @Home list. There was no need to leave home for office then - and short review of ALL the contexts would have shown that.

So my conclusion is there're 2 ways out:

1. Setup time for each context in a day to make sure you are at least once in each of your @contexts daily not to miss an important thing; or

2. Review all @context list daily in the morning or the day before to check what context contains the most important action and to plan the start of the day with that context. For example, if I review the list and find out that the most important action is in the @Office context then I would plan in my calendar to go to the office the next day.

Comment

David does recommend daily planning, if it helps. In one of the audio seminars on this website he talks about highlighting the next actions in the morning that would have the highest impact through the day.

I dont think theres anything wrong with scanning through your lists and deciding which handful will make the biggest impact. The alternative is scanning through your lists ahead of every NA you take, which seems like more effort.

Bishblaze, why not to mention that not in a webinar but in one of the models for choosing what to do. There's a 4-criteria model, then 3-fold nature of work and horizons of focus. None of them says to look through all the contexts (or actions if you don't have contexts) you have and choose the most important one based on energy, time available and pay-off.

Context criteria wrongly limits available choices because your most important action can (and usually will) be out of the context you are in any particular moment.

TesTeq, I assume we talk about the same thing here. Do you somehow mark these actions or plan to start with them the next day?

Actions in my calendar should be done on a given day and at the specified time (if it is specified). Next Actions should be done as soon as possible in current context taking into account time, energy and priority

Comment

I have been experimenting with the concept of planning my day and have found picking three important things to commit to doing a day has been great. I use a hardbound book and date the page. The first three lines are the three things I am going to get done that day with a colorful line below them. I "try" to avoid doing anything else until these three things are done. The trick is of course to write the tasks in a way you can be sure to complete them.